


it's like dancing when the song's already over

by nsofties



Series: the visible spectrum [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Falling Out of Love, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Heartbreak, M/M, Mentioned Huang Ren Jun, Mentioned Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Mentioned Mark Lee (NCT), Mentioned Na Jaemin, Mentioned Seo Youngho | Johnny, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, basically just a whole lot of angst it's what i'm best at, i'm not tagging the end-game couple it's a surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nsofties/pseuds/nsofties
Summary: Seeing color was an indicator of falling in love. It didn’t help Jeno Lee all that much.





	it's like dancing when the song's already over

Donghyuck met Jeno when he was just twelve. Five days later, he could see color. It was a bit scary to him at first, waking up one morning to see the yellow paint he had chosen for his walls when he was five. For the longest time, it had been a light shade of gray and Donghyuck, for what it’s worth, was  _ okay _ with living in a black-and-white world. Mark would always complain about the lack of color and Donghyuck would roll his eyes, shaking his head.

“It’s not that great,” he said, shaking his head tiredly.

“You can see color?”

“Yeah, and that purple shirt is mighty ugly on you, Mark.”

“What does purple look like?”

Donghyuck paused and Mark watched as his face contorted into a thoughtful expression before he answers. “It’s not all that great,” he says flippantly, waving a hand. “Yellow, however. Now  _ that’s _ a color I like.”

“What does that look like?”

“It looks like sunshine and happiness and puppy smiles.”

“Oh. I like the sound of yellow.”

 

* * *

 

The first time Jeno was able to see color was when he turned seven and met Jaemin. His parents had warned him - you’ll stop being able to see color the third time you fall out of love. He wasn’t sure what it had meant when he was younger. Jeno was sure that he would love Jaemin for forever. Two years, to a kid, seemed like a really long time. But, soon enough, the colors faded from Jeno’s world. He never told Jaemin, anyways. 

When he was nine, he fell in with Renjun. His love for Renjun lasted the longest, really. It was hard for him to  _ not _ fall for the new boy in school who looked at him with stars in his eyes when Jeno showed him around school. Jeno never told Renjun, either. He just let himself fall in and out of love. This was his second time. He hoped that his third time would be his last. All the colors were already looking less saturated.

When he was twelve, he fell in love with Mark that same year, he met Donghyuck. Falling in and out of love with Mark was fast. Mark was nice, and kind, and loved Jeno, but in the way a brother would. Not the way a lover would. And Jeno knew that he had blown all three of his shots a year later - that he was going to live in a monochromatic world for the rest of his life.

If he fell in love, he wouldn’t know. He would never see color again.

 

* * *

 

Donghyuck sits with Jeno under the glow-in-the-dark stars they glued onto his ceiling that glow such a faint green you have to squint to see the light in the darkness. He decides that he quite likes the color green - it’s made by mixing blue and yellow and he really likes the color yellow. Donghyuck is fifteen when Jeno tells him that he’s fallen in - and out of - love three times. That he’s never going to be able to see color. He says nothing, lips pursed.

“Have you ever fallen in love?” Jeno asks, eyes wide as he looks at Donghyuck. He stares back, barely able to make out Jeno’s face and freshly-dyed blonde hair in the darkness.

Donghyuck wants to say,  _ yes, you idiot. You. I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve. _ But, instead, he bites his tongue, rolling his head to stare back at the ceiling and hoping Jeno does the same. Donghyuck wants to be honest - wants to get his heart broken so the world can go back to the way it was before. He decides that it’s better to lie.

Jeno clears his throat, waiting for an answer, and Donghyuck decides that he probably deserves it. He nods no, hesitant to speak - afraid his voice won’t carry across the small space between them. “I haven’t, yet. I hope the first time I fall in love, it’s reciprocated.”

Donghyuck hates lying, but he relinquishes the fact that it isn’t a  _ total lie _ . He did wish that his first love would be reciprocated. It’s just that wishes don’t always come true.

 

* * *

 

Jeno is seventeen when he thinks that he might not be able to see color, but he’s in love with Donghyuck. He would never tell him him that, though - not when Donghyuck deserves someone who can see color. Mark tells Jeno that Donghyuck hasn’t fallen in love once for as long as they’ve known one another. To Jeno, that means he still has his three tries. And Jeno  _ knew _ \- of at least, to him - that when they were fifteen Donghyuck still hadn’t fallen in love.

At eighteen, Jeno wonders if he ever will. He wonders if perhaps Donghyuck will be one of the lucky ones - who gets to live the rest of his life in color. He hopes that he will - because Donghyuck deserves to be surrounded by color, Jeno thinks. He still remembers what color looks like, even if he’ll never see it again, and he thinks that Donghyuck is yellow - the yellow that’s warm and soft, like sunlight, but  _ better _ .

His heart beats faster and skips sometimes when he sees Donghyuck. The night of prom, the night of graduation. Jeno couldn’t see color, but he knew that whatever out-of-this-world suit color Donghyuck had chosen, it looked lovely. He knows that a sunshine yellow suit would have been ugly, and Jeno isn’t even sure if they  _ make _ suits like that, but he thinks that it’s the only color that would look right. That any other color would be wrong.

Jeno wishes he could see color with him, rather than remembering them.

 

* * *

 

Donghyuck is eighteen and in college and still seeing color. He thinks that, by now, he should be over Jeno Lee, but he isn’t - he’s still hopelessly in love with a boy who’ll never know. Mark lets it slip one day, when they’re sitting in the library, Donghyuck’s face plastered to a text book, that he can see color, when he tells Donghyuck that he likes the colors of his new backpack - red and blue with stripes of yellow. He says that the yellow suits him.

He’s peeling his face from the thin pages of the book as Mark apologizes for keeping it a secret from him for years - that of everyone, his best friend deserved to know, but he was so scared.  He doesn’t tell Donghyuck who he loves, but Donghyuck doesn’t pry, especially since Mark never asked him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Donghyuck says with a smile, shrugging as he closes his book. “I just hope, for your sake, that you can see color for as long as I have.”

“What does seeing color mean if the person you love can’t see it because of you?”

“Just be glad that you can see color, Mark. That’s all.”

Donghyuck is shoving things into his bag and Mark is doing the same as the two of them leave the library, side-by-side, as always. For Donghyuck, it’s always been Hyuck and Mark, Mark and Hyuck, and he wonders why he couldn’t have fallen in love with his best friend instead. With a shake of his head, he lets the thoughts fall away, linking arms with Mark.

“Well, I  _ mean _ , if you feel  _ that _ badly, you’re always more than welcome to buy me a sundae from the ice cream parlor. Maybe even if you say it’s for me Johnny will give you a discount!”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, Hyuck.”

 

* * *

 

Jeno is twenty, and sure that he’s in love with Donghyuck. He’s sure, because every time he thinks about Donghyuck, every time he sees Donghyuck, he can see color again, even if just for a moment. He thinks about how his cousin, Doyoung, had ran into his house, breathless, eyes wide, shouting about being able to see color, his fourth time falling in love. Jeno is twenty-one, and sure that he loves Donghyuck.

Jeno is twenty-one, and thinks that Donghyuck deserves to know. Eventually. The words just get caught in his throat every time he seems him - sees the way that he smiles so easily, in the dark about Jeno’s feelings. Jeno thinks that if he told Donghyuck, he would break whatever routine he has in his life.

 

* * *

 

Donghyuck is twenty-one, and he’s starting to be unable to tell the difference between shades of red and brown. He realizes that, nearly ten years later, he is  _ finally _ falling out of love with Jeno Lee. He doesn’t know how to feel.

 

* * *

 

Jeno is twenty-four and looks at Donghyuck, who blinks at him, a guilty expression flashing across his face as he pushes his milkshake away from himself so he can lean against the table. He is twenty-three and confessing to Donghyuck and hating the feeling in his stomach as Donghyuck clears his throat.

“I was in love with you for nearly ten years, Jeno Lee,” Donghyuck says with a soft smile. “I’m so grateful that, for so many years, you let me see color. When I was twenty-one, the world turned black and white again.”

Jeno feels it, his heart breaking, unable to look at the bright yellow of Donghyuck’s shirt and the soft browns of his hair. “I -”

“When I was twenty-two, I could see color again.” Jeno feels his mouth settle into an O, the hope in his chest fluttering for a moment. “And, for the first time in my life, it was reciprocated.”

“Oh.”

“I… I actually wanted to meet, because I wanted to give you this.” Donghyuck slides an envelope across the table towards him that he opens with shaky hands. “Mark… Because of me, Mark has been seeing color since he was sixteen. And because of Mark, I can see color again. He… he was the one who told me that you deserved to know from  _ me _ .”

“Oh.” Jeno closes the envelope and nods. He should’ve seen this coming, really. He should’ve known. He hates the feeling in his stomach as Donghyuck shoots him a look of pity that he clearly didn’t intend for Jeno to see.

“I hope… that you can find someone who sees color for you.”

Jeno smiles, but shakes his head. He’s not sure if he ever wants to see color again if it isn’t yellow.

**Author's Note:**

> my original idea for this was: Falling in love gives your life color. Falling out of love turns it black and white. Every time you fall out of love, the colors will be less and less vibrant until you can’t see color at all. It’s a race against time to be able to see the world. Donghyuck has been in love with Jeno since the moment they met. Jeno can’t see color anymore.  
> it’s short, it’s kind of? sweet, and i really enjoyed writing it. I’m a thousand times more comfortable with angst hehe  
> not proof-read, barely edited, kind of a mess. a bunch of snapshots of their lives.  
> title from lauv’s chasing fire  
> let me know what you thought! hehe


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